


Grey Ghosts

by EveningRose309



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Author Is Tired Just Looking At This, Backstory, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Dogs, EXTREME Canon Divergence, Gift Exchange, Gift Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE, Military Background, Military Backstory, Multi, Past Abuse, So Canon Divergence, The Author Regrets Everything, fyi I have no idea what I'm doing with the military stuff, just putting that out there, no beta we die like men, not from any of the parental figures mind you, take it with a grain of salt, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:07:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveningRose309/pseuds/EveningRose309
Summary: He could attest to that. He could attest to that many times, now, as he was older and it had been four years since that night in their bedroom when she’d cried kneeling on the floor and apologized for being away, for always being away, for always having to be from then on and forever, though not as severe as those first two years when she’d woken.They wanted a test run, boys. I couldn’t- I’m sorry I never said no.They’d all come to find as years passed that there was no saying no to the militia, to the Grand Secretaries and the generals and the red herring king who never could leave well enough alone.[Set in the world where Grindelwald won in 1935 instead of ‘45, is a family man, has a niece, is crowned First King of The Wizarding Empire, Lord High Chancellor of the Militia, and two grandnephews not wholly unaware of what the implications of who he is to them are. Half bloods in the family, wolf puns abound, though one thing remains the same:Nobody likes Albus Dumbledore.]
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Percival Graves/Gellert Grindelwald - Mentioned
Kudos: 1





	Grey Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlastorGrim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlastorGrim/gifts).



> You will not believe how hard it was to get this thing on here.
> 
> Okay, alright, what are you doing here? If you're here for a bit of alternate world building and rampant OC backstory, welcome. I did not know people like you existence, but I am very glad that you do. Have you eaten yet? Are the holidays so crappy you came here of all places? Here specifically? To read this? Are you okay? Are you inside the house or at your local McDonalds escaping the reality of everything around you by scrolling through the Archive tags?
> 
> Well, to each their own. Welcome. I do hope this is coherent. And that you enjoy yourself. And that your holidays cease to be crap very soon so you can get back to some quality reading.
> 
> Oh, and Mortem? Merry Christmas Babey. I sent you a dog in the mail. Go read your damn messages already.

* * *

* * *

The steps to the apartment had been glazed when he got there. He’d penned the date on a spare napkin, but then, he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't be home on time. Or maybe - maybe he was early. He hadn’t exactly taken time zones into account when he’d booked it over. He knew the date was right for _him_ because he’d been staring at it for the last half hour and the day before spent sneaking glances at the calendar - but time zones. She did say in her last letter that night and day were awfully different in the East.

_Petey boy, our skies are the same, though I wouldn’t recommend us staring into them in tandem. Wouldn’t want you going blind._

He tugged his coat tighter around his chest and dug his arms into his sides as far as he could. The cold was getting to him, though he supposed going out the night after a snowstorm would do that. She once told him their blood was impervious, but as it was with him huddled on her front porch, awningless door doing nothing to stave off the snowfall or the winds, he couldn’t see the immunity. 

_S’gotta be colder out there Petey. I mean, a mountain! The real deal, Pete, the Alps!_

Ilvermorney couldn’t compare. Peter folded into himself.

He shouldn’t have rushed. Should have brought a thicker coat or a scarf or something. His mittens were old and worn, his shirt and trousers too thin, his sweater vest too porous. His shoes, well, they were new, somewhat, Jack had worn out both their pairs racing the housemates up and down the south wing every day for bragging points. Peter couldn’t fault him - the Wampus boys were hardasses- sorry Dad -and the only way you could get them to leave you alone was by wholeheartedly impressing the fifth years in some benign feat of athleticism or knocking whomever that decided to put maggots under the Pukwudgie changing room benches on their ass at dinner on the very open, very viewable courtyard just few paces shy of the faculty rooms. In lieu of being sent to the headmaster and a phoning home, Jack had chosen the first option easy. 

Movement made his peripheral, movement that wasn’t the snowflakes or a passing stage coach or whatever new model car they’d brought in from Detroit this summer. Jack had kept saying all through their ride home that Dad was going to get a new car - their one was perfect already, wholly them, years of tinkering and tweaking and custom parts shoehorned and hammered together to make it _them_ and _perfect_. There’d been letters on the counter when they’d got home, some indeed from car-guys, some brochures, and one personal from a very familiar H. Ford, shoved aside into a pile and he wasn’t sure why it had felt so good seeing them there. That was, until Laurie came around, and at that point his brain had gone into overdrive. He scrunched the letter from Ford in his fists as the shadowy figure in the mist dropped into a dead sprint for the apartment - they would not be getting a new car, they were sure as hell not getting a new car, gift or otherwise. 

Some part of him worried as the figure glided over the pavement, that she might skip and fall or some clunker might cut the corner last minute or a cop or something. Most of him though, most of him _reveled_ , obscenely happy at the notion that she’d quite possibly broken a few laws there, crossing the street like she did, completely ignoring the perfectly good sidewalks in a linear diagonal warpath through the snow, up until she knelt- was kneeling in front of him and she wasn’t even wearing a hat or mufflers-

Her breaths came in puffs on his hair and face. She was shaking him, saying something, but all he could see were the stains on her snow trodden boots and the frayed edges of her overcoat.

“-mein Gott, Peter.” Her hands- no mittens -came to hold his face. Hers looked frozen though the crease of her eyes was touching and oddly warm.

“Let’s get you inside, Petey Boy,” and he should have said something when her arms came around him, should have said his legs were fine and he could get in through the door all by himself and that she didn’t need to carry him. They would both know it was a lie though - and the one thing he hated more than snooty Manhattan blondes was lying. To _Her_.

He could pretend the warmth in his chest was from her heating charms and not the solidness of being pressed into her arms.

They’d been eight when they first met their mother. They’d seen the pictures growing up of course; black and white framed pieces lining their father’s study, and Jack had mumbled something about Christmas two years prior and _“Hey Pete, you felt it too right? The kiss, you know - I’m serious, I saw her, she was in the room- Pete!”_

He couldn’t recall having seen her before- maybe a memory, something from their baby years -but what he did know, standing in the doorway to kitchen that summer morning, pie in the oven, pie already on the counter, and Jack with his mouth open wide like a fish as a woman in a flowery white sundress was animatedly beating an egg with a whisk in the creaming bowl - was that it just felt _right_ . The space - she _owned_ it, like she belonged there, and it wasn’t like Laurie and her half baked attempts at chocolate chip, or Aunt Annie or Archie with a pizza from Gio’s. There’d been an ease to her steps, to her _movement_ ; she knew where everything was and never gave pause or hesitated when she got out the nice plates- the porcelain gilded plates Dad never let anyone touch ever -off the locked cabinet to far end of the room, the only one that hadn’t been inset with glass. She had paused though, when she saw them there, and the look on her face had been unreadable to them at the tender they’d been, a look that had only lasted a second before she was passing the plates to Peter and an absolutely gorgeous golden apple pie with what looked to be apple rose petals and braided crust to Jack and was telling them to go set the the table.

Apple and pear pie for breakfast had been a genius first impression, even if they had gotten sick from wolfing down the two halves of each in record time as their father had watched, a smile on his face so foreign to them both he and Jack had had to stop and hold themselves because wow. Yeah, they’d never seen Dad smile like that.

_“Like the pie?” They’d nodded sluggishly._

_“Good, good. Means I haven’t gone rusty. We can save the rest for later when we’re done at the park.”_

Another stroke of brilliance about the whole thing - it had distracted from the awkwardness, the elephant that should have been in the room but seemed to have shrunken with that first bite and callous hands rubbing salve over his knees from when they’d skidded on the sidewalk on their way home.

_I know the flowers are pretty looking, but you shouldn’t let your feet go off unsupervised for too long. They tend to make bad decisions when you do._

He could attest to that. He could attest to that many times, now, as he was older and it had been four years since that night in their bedroom when she’d cried kneeling on the floor and apologized for being away, for always being away, for always having to be from then on and forever, though not as severe as those first two years when she’d woken.

_They wanted a test run, boys. I couldn’t- I’m sorry I never said no._

They’d all come to find as years passed that there was no saying no to the militia, to the Grand Secretaries and the generals and the red herring king who never could leave well enough alone.

This though, he wouldn’t call this a bad decision, not even as his mother stripped him down and made him slip into the heavy wool pyjamas that always seemed to hang on his frame and blasted the fireplace awake with a flame charm before sitting him down on the floor right in front of it. No socks, not even a napkin as she shoved a too warm cup of hot cocoa into his hands, the porcelain practically melting into his fingers, though he couldn’t find it in himself to mind. This was what mothers did - they fussed and grumbled and stomped around kitchens in their army issue boots- before realising they were still in said boots and cursing, stripped away their whole uniforms in favor of robes too thick and raggedy to be fashionable -and made their sons get into the scraggliest clothes they could find before settling behind them in front of a warm fireplace and tugging them close to fit snug against their chest, propriety be damned because there was no one around but them and society could go see itself out the fucking door.

Peter smiled. His mother was a mumbler and he loved it when she was too in her own head and grievances to notice that she was cussing off her bosses under her tongue. In the same breaths as calling him an angel, a fool, a wanderer, she was stringing up curse words the likes of which that would put Richie Goldfinch to shame and making promises to emancipate whatever thick skulled dunderhead troll ousted her son from his own home and left him to huddle in the cold. She had a habit of skimming thoughts which was, as had Jack suspected time and time again, how she knew all the things she did; what to say to them, what they really wanted, what they never knew they needed, who hurt them and why. Peter saw it as convenient whilst for Jack it was _“another Mom-stery to solve”_.

_Why would she need to do that? She could just ask or…..maybe that’s just how she is?_

They’d deduced early on that she wasn’t Mrs. Kowalski. Skimming was not the same as outright reading, seeing, _hearing_ , and Archie had joked once that that was, in fact, _“just how your old lady is”_.

Hands started to massage his temples and Peter leaned into them once he was done with the coco. 

“Mind telling me what you were doing out there?”

He hummed, which in his speak- which she knew -meant No.

“Want me to call your father?” 

He gave a little shake then. No. No he did not. Jack knew where he was and that was enough.

“Was it Laurie?” she added in hush. Peter opened his eyes. He couldn’t remember when they’d closed.

 _Old lady_. He chanced a glance at the skin of her neck, the smooth column with next to no wrinkles connecting her heavy set shoulders to her marble cut jaw. Her hands dropped slowly as he shifted to see the rest of her. Sad eyes, taut cheeks, slightly crooked nose, thin lips hairline fractured and split in places, and brows that folded on just about the only creases on her face. She couldn’t be old, she never was. He knew it was the magic, the curse laid upon her that made her faultless, her features carved like the stone lions at the Metro for eternity, inhuman in every way. He knew, but he revelled in it. No one could compare, not even wannabe Laurie or the hundreds of other flapper girls working the Order, trying to see if they could tempt their father away for the evening or the hour or the day.

And whenever they succeeded, Peter couldn’t help but curse the Capitol a little more. If it weren’t for them, they, a family, with Aunt Annie and Archie, could have taken Manhattan and finally the Mulroneys would stop butting and biting in at every turn and Laurie would have been gone, floating in the Hudson with her hands shanked off and hung over the fifth avenue street marker like the bad omen they were.

_Your Mama’s like a steel trap sometimes, in more ways than one. Get on her bad side, and you ain’t leaving till she lets you and not before she tears up your ankles either._

She kissed his forehead, her palm like sandpaper cupping his cheek before easing his head to rest on her shoulder. He snuggled close, unashamed, and frankly too tired to even fathom the rankling in his chest as she rocked him against the couch. Let Jack be the prodigal son - he was already the success in so many other regards, what was one more?

He felt her nosing into his hair and kissing him again. Yeah, definitely skimming, though again, it wasn’t as if he minded. He was grateful, even, that she wasn’t _speaking_ , that there wasn’t a _‘you are not and do not have to be your brother’_ speech or an anecdote on the futility of perfection or sibling rivalry or whatever nonsense the psyche wards were sleeping these days. He knew those ones by heart, he’d heard them all before.

_You can talk with your eyes, you know. Your father and I do it all the time. Neat little trick, for when you want to say some things you don’t want others to hear._

_Look at me Petey, look at me._

He was looking now, even if she couldn’t see. He knew, and she knew, it was all she needed to hear.

* * *

The counselor had said it had something to do with change; that he couldn’t deal, that his temper and possessiveness disallowed him from registering any of it as good. Uncle Pint had said it had something to do with the smog; that knowing the park as a babe, before the cars and factories started booming again, had gotten his lungs used to the before so anything in the after just served to irritate him, gnaw at his chest like some dull little squirrel. His Dad had told him it was the breeze; Archie had joked that it might have been the lack of baseballs; and Laurie would always coo that he was jealous because all the other boys had girls on their arm and he didn’t.

You could perfectly guess who had the least accurate assumption of the bunch - he’d cringe every single time she’d say it, masking the curl of his lip with a laugh. Thanks Mom. 

Anyway; Archie had been half right, lack of white, teacup sized- the real ones, like the set Dad had skewed Mom’s way for safe keeping (read: so Laurie couldn’t get her mitts on them) -hand stitched spheres was a factor, but so was lack of blunt instruments of destruction, usually made of wood, though the magical variety had leather and metal straps on so as not to break said wood. Central Park without a beater’s bat was just _wrong_ to Jack. Central Park _in the daytime_ without a baseball bat? Now that was plain criminal, torture, he should be suing someone for...something.

Pete should probably be on that. Yeah, Peter would know what to do, what to sue these people for, how to make the charges stick, how much the other side would counter and how exactly to dunk said counter under the bridge and possibly drown it. Probably. His brother would make a great lawyer, some day.

But for now - bats. He needed a bat, his hand was itching and it was hardly even midday.

A hand landed on his shoulder, a slow pressure that startled him out of his inner monologue carefully, and told him exactly how long he’d been staring dead empty at the frozen lake for - which was to say, exactly a minute too long. Or maybe even an hour. Probably half, yeah. At least he wasn’t being stared at though, there was usually a crumbling sensation that came with being stared at by his Dad. The man was supernatural and Jack would stake his case on that till the day the Pukwudgies could win a game without a snitch. 

He could see a square of ice thinning in the distance. Yeah, that was probably where his Dad was looking. 

Neither of their parents were talkers. Sure, his mother could hold down a dinner party like the best of them and his Dad could wipe the floor with the overzealous business moguls that came baying for a deal with the Union any day of the weak, but they never started. They spoke when spoken to - which wasn’t to say they did that with Jack and Peter- if anything, it was the opposite, and even though the conversations would often turn one sided, you could tell his parents were still _present_ -or either of them really, just that, well, they tended not to speak when their voices weren’t really needed. 

Or something. Some days he would catch his Dad grumbling about something or scowling and those were the days you could count on the house being deserted of all visitors. His parents were the type who didn’t need words. Jack could do it fine if he wanted; Pete practically _exuded_ that energy, whether he wanted to or not. 

The hand was rubbing his back and, like the fridge magnet Peter always accused him of being, he leaned into his Dad’s side and bent to his shape. This was one of those when he was glad the no talking thing was in place - no needless jokes about clinginess, no jabs at him wanting human comfort from one of the only humans he’d want comfort from. Just peace. If his Dad wanted him to shove off, he would know, and the fact that he did know was always something his counselor had found absolutely fascinating and _can you help the other boys with that Jack, they could really use the reassurance?_

 _No, Nurse Godfrey_ , he would laugh her off because frankly, he didn’t know the other boys’ dads. He knew his one, and his one was an outlier on the scoreboard - the same way Maria Königswald was. He was sure most dad’s couldn’t pull off the no talking thing without squirming- he’d seen it -just as much as he was sure most moms didn’t spend a good chunk of the year overseas doing secret military work covered in sand or mud or sea salt, making deals with whatever devils to get home for in time Christmas. His Dad took them to baseball games and his Mom was there in the summer baking pie, but that was the extent of their normalcy - or at the very least the only normalcy they could well and truly stomach before someone's sink went flying out the window. 

All this to say; his Dad’s hand was warm on his back and he didn’t mind folding into the guy like a baby bird if it meant he could have some comfort. He saw him something like maybe four months of the year. This was deserved.

And like hell if he wasn’t going to savour it before Laurie Mulroney could come barreling and he’d have to step aside and let her.

And that, apparently, was when his Dad thought it appropriate to showcase his second superpower; telepathy.

“Her old man’s on the other side of the park.”

Jack considered the information. “How long do we got?”

His Dad shrugged. Not long then.

“Do you wanna head to your mother’s?”

The thought was tempting. Jack worried his lip.

“You coming?” and he raised his head to the older man. His Dad gave him a look before settling his eyes on nowhere again.

“We still have business.”

Jack understood. Someone’s got to distract her anyhow. She’d been antsy when Peter hadn’t turned up this morning. For all that Laurie was a conniving ditz- could you put those two on the same sentence? was that allowed? -she could be pretty perceptive when she wanted to be. It would only be a matter of time till New York’s ‘finest’ figured out ol' Mary was back in town. The rumor mill would start up again and the four of them would be reduced to sneaking around past curfew hours and hunkering down in Mom’s case, beater bats and rally recordings in hand. On the one hand though, it would be nice to not have Mom be paraded around the Underground this year and have his Dad having to repeat “Yes, we’re still married” and “Orders are orders” over and over again.

“Think she’d notice?” he found himself asking. He knew the answer, but the thought of leaving his Dad to more scrutiny…

There was a minute before his Dad replied, though Jack would have already known what he was going to say from his face. Thinning lips, lowering brows, tick in his jaw and oh, yeah, the other thing Peter inherited. Jack got their Mom’s slow, dangerous smile, but Peter had gotten _that_.

The narrowing, darkening, sharpening, _Steeling Eye_ s. The eyes that capped your knees without even having to look long.

“She won't,” and that was that.

He gave a squeeze to his Dad’s sides before taking off, in lieu of a hug; hugs were for when they wouldn’t see each other for months and letters would be slow. Hugs were for long goodbyes, Dad would be joining them tonight or at the very least tomorrow, if Laurie kept him. They would pray that she wouldn’t, but that would be moot.

So on a cold December’s morning in 1944, Jack Barker slipped out of Central Park, a blur in the wind as he went to join his twin and mother, a third in the quartet, making his escape knowing he wouldn’t be missed. 

* * *

_II_

_the voiceless son, the pen does march_

_to boundless sun faith does bend_

_dance again, oh songless lark_

_best to put dear kings to bed_

  
  


~~_I_ ~~

~~_child of two, lady of one_ ~~

~~_songless lark to foolish king_ ~~

~~_king of worlds soon undone_ ~~

~~_pair of whom death does sing_ ~~

* * *

They’d gotten Pongo the year Zakarin died. You would argue the timing and she would have to agree; a poor man’s attempt at consolation, the eclipsing of a tragedy via happy event. Not that it had been much happy, she’d never wanted a dog nor had ever entertained the thought of owning one. At fifteen her mind had been in other places - not very good places, mind, but who’s would be when they’d just lost a loved one? To this day she would wonder if Alexei had ever begrudged her, or more likely the old man, for attempting to replace his brother with a dog. Not that that would matter either, in the end; Pongo never did end up hers, and she and dogs would become reacquainted in other ways down the line. 

That said, Pongo had been an effort. A moot effort, considering the circumstances, for sure one that came off as abrasive at her age at the time- would you see someone above the age of six be excited for a pet when their father or father figure had just passed? -but at the very least, there had been some. She could not hold it to the old man, no matter how hard she would seldom try - he’d never been made for fatherhood and neither was she the most forward of children when it came to joyless emotions or expressions of concern. Blame that on their environment, their histories, whatever. Pongo had become his dog by the time her misadventures had been found out and she reckoned he had been the better fit to the old man in those five odd years than she had in the eight they’d known each other.

He would argue that was wrong, that no one could ever replace her, and sentiment would be warming, but sentiment wasn’t the point.

Zakarin’s death had been the tipping point for her fate - as Laurie Mulroney would be for her son. That woman held no couth to her, no grace, no morale, and for the line of work Ava had committed herself to all these years, that was saying something. Women like Mulroney were hardly few and far in between, she’d met her fair share, but for all her experience she had been hoping none of it would see the day of affecting her son. Peter was too young for this, too young to know the pain of this sort of transgression, to realize the sort of twisted thinking that a person’s material value was only in their body existed. You would argue most little girls would have it worse, and they did, she wouldn’t argue that either - but most little girls had their parents or friends to refute the claim; their mothers to hold them, whispering comforts in the night; and fathers with crowbars or brass knuckle fittings, fury blinded senses searing as they pounded whoever dared defiled their child in that way into the paydirt before leaving them to float with the sharks, their unmentionables sorely missing from their bodies when they were found, later, by police or aurors or what have you. Or something like that. Most little girls had something like that, to a degree.

And the ones who didn’t - the ones who hadn't hung themselves or drowned themselves or became chronic drunkards who flirted with men of all ages and sizes and walks or never flirted a day in their lives again thereafter. Most became reserved, hollowed out shells of their former selves; the lucky ones grew into shining pions of womanhood, devoting their time to the efforts no one had proffered them when they’d been young.

All that said and done though, this was different. This was her boy, her son - and she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t been there for the looks, the touches that had gone too far, nor for the words that had no doubt spilt from that foul mouth when it had been high on its egotistical ecstasy. _Just like your father. You so have his nose. You’ve got really pretty eyes, Pete. Where do you think you’re going, stay a while! Land those pretty eyes on me, I don’t mind. C’mon Pete, don’t be a pansy, it’s alright to stare._

Never mind that he was twelve. Never mind that he had enough social anxiety and aversion to human contact as it was. Never mind his speech impediment, the war effort it was to even speak for him, never mind that his father had been _right there- never mind right Laurie? Never mind that you have my husband for eight months of the year, now you want my sons too?_

And she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t been there to save him, to stand her ground, to stake her claim on her own house. And now that she was - what good was she with the state watching her every move? What good was she on borrowed time? With Dumbledore and his cronies waiting to catch her every transgression and report her to the Secretary’s Office? What good would she be under house arrest, made to pace the holding rooms at the Capitol, six feet under and the furthest away from her sons that they could humanly manage? What good would she be, a dog tied to a stick, then?

Never mind that she already was a dog tied to a stick, but at least the chain was longer now that she’s served her quarters and gotten them the results they’d wanted _without any bloodshed_. She was still their best dog, if be it their most choked and haltered one.

A dog was a dog though, and that meant she would need to find other ways.

“How’s this Mom!” she looked up to see Jack settled on his broom now, beater in hand.

“Looking good Jack! Might want to- yeah that’s it, good lad! Now hold it in one- now Jackie, we need to test your arms, come on!”

“Okay,” her youngest moaned, dejectedly lowering his bat so that it dangled on one hand instead of being clasped in two. 

“Good, now go back and forth with it. Switch hands- that’s it, attaboy!”

Jack seemed to focus his weight as he passed his bat back and forth between hands, glancing up nervously every few minutes or so. 

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

She saw him bite his lip and hesitate. “I- I don’t wanna- Peter-”

The elder twin perked up as his name was called. Peter was below Jack on the mock hill, sprawled out with his homework scattered about him. He’d rolled over, looking up at Jack with calm eyes. This seemed to make Jack even more nervous.

“Jack-”

“I’ll drop it!”

“Okay,” she held her arms up, “Okay.”

Then, stepping off the podium on the other side of the room, she beckoned.

“Come here,” she said, “this way, you won’t hurt your brother and we can get a better look at your posture and seating.

“But the hardwood-”

“I can _fix_ wood flooring, Jack,” her son cringed still, “-trust me, I can, now come here. Fly a little lower, if you’re still scared of dropping it.”

The boy grumbled, “I’m not scared” as he floated warily across the field, lowering himself gradually as he passed where the grass met the varnished floorboards.

“I know,” she smiled as he came up to her. “You’re the bravest boy I know, Jack.”

“Braver than Uncle Jaime?” her son quirked a brow. She laughed.

“You’d be surprised,” she put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, “Ol’ James ain’t as brave as you think.”

“He a scarredy cat or something?”

“Mm no- lay your foot back, no, never mind, relax, there you go -um, more of his wife than anything else.”

In the time it took for Jack to sit a little easier, Peter had meandered away from his bed at the hill and to the shade of the tree by the border. Ava caught her eldest staring, but he was quick to put his head down before she could ask him to join them.

“I thought Aunt Amelie was nice,” Jack said, leaning back and holding his bat aloft in a ready position.

Ava corrected his shoulders. “She is, but all men fear their wives to some degree”. Then she added; “To a _healthy_ degree. The usual, you know; fearing for their safety when they’re away, their ire if they guess a color wrong, their disappointment if they come home too late. That sort of thing.”

Jack hummed. “Is Dad like that too?”

Now that was a question. Ava chuckled; “Mmm, no, I wouldn’t know, though in my respects I think your Dad and I have it all turned around.”

The conversation lulled after that into more quidditch related things; Jack prattling on about the latest game he’d seen and her listening aptly, as they hardly had the time or money to afford a television or broadcast any sort of non military radio when on duty in the East. Or her division anyway, though her agents scarcely grumbled about lack of entertainment when they were pouring over maps and portfolios. Some days they would pluck out a local newspaper and one of them would fold out the sports or gossip section for later. She’d never cared for the papers - not since she’d been twelve and nearly drove herself into a frenzy over whatever auror drivel had been in the Prophet about her old man. None helped whatsoever by how said man seemed almost amused at her panic before soothing it over by telling her columnist and interviewees will print whatever they want in a paper as long as it keeps the public cowed and docile whilst havoc wrecks the offices. He’d assured her the fires hadn’t been at the safe house, no, in fact it had been the other way around. Leave it to the ICW to have one of their outposts burnt down to a crisp by a bunch of greenie acolytes and then turn around and spin the whole story on the news.

Again, every once in a while she caught Peter staring and something in her longed to call him over. Some mother instinct surely, though she was hesitant to heed it. Call it a by-product of not having much of one herself growing up and having an uncle-playing-father that had been just as confused and out of depth about their situation as she had been. Call it hereditary - Grindelwalds weren’t made to be parents. They weren’t made for the level of intimacy meant for parenthood, or even if they came close, it was never close enough or even vaguely similar in any given sense to call it that. Her grandparents before her had raised their children in the most emotionally distant way possible, leaving them to basically depend on and fend for each other. The closeness they’d developed had destroyed them when they went their separate paths and she had a sneaking suspicion her true father’s death had only amplified whatever by-product emotions her mother had harboured for her brother. And Gellert hadn’t loved her, truly loved her, until she had been eleven, some three years after her mother had handed her over, and she’d only known when they were on King’s Cross and the hug he’d given her had been warmer than any fire they’d ever lit in any hotel room or safehouse in Russia. Even then, their relationship had evolved into something more of an intimate amenable companionship than the traditional father-daughter sort; more friends than relatives, until it had all been undone in ‘23 and the world had spiraled out of their hands faster than you could have said goodbye. He hadn’t been there when she made the pact and took the brand; hadn’t been there when Laurence had used poison against her for the first time, a lesson in reflexes, he’d said; and certainly hadn’t been there when she’d been rocking herself back and forth after that mission had gone awry, when the men they’d targeted caught her instead and held her captive for days, raping her, torturing her, and she’d gotten away by sheer luck, stabbing them in their sleep when they’d forgotten to put the chains back on her after a session. She’d been seventeen. There hadn't been a welcome party when she made it back to base and the only consolation Laurence had offered was a bottle forced down her throat and the sweet release of her mind drowning in age old vodka. She didn’t want those things for her sons, wouldn’t wish them on anyone in a million years.

And now that she _was_ here, she would have to be better - she would have to change things.

As Jack had gone on to change and pack away the equipment, Ava snuck over to her paper busy Petey and wordlessly plopped herself down next to him. He didn’t flinch, which was something, but the rigidness and forced calm that he held himself in made her heart lurch in a way she never thought possible outside the field. She tucked one arm behind him and eased him into leaning against her on the tree, knees propped up to support the paper he was writing. The one good thing about always being away and almost never being lovey-dovey with her boys; they let her hold them any way she wanted, when she wanted to. They didn’t squirm away- much less Peter, who was too dignified for squirming -and they almost never complained if she hugged them too hard. She held Peter loosely at her side and regarded him; his straight and regal nose; his lightly set brow that always made him looked angry or annoyed; his lithe hands stained in ink and callused from his writing; his evergreen, Grindelwald staple duo-colored eyes, even if they just were two differing shades of the same color. Her mother had that, in some recess of her mind she recalled Gabrielle having two very blue eyes, one lighter and brighter than the other. Ava had gotten her uncle’s eyes by some fluke, though some would say hers were colder and meaner than his. She’d been relieved the day they’d been born and her boys had gotten their father’s eyes in the lesser variety, the off-shades, rather than hers and Gellert’s outright dual, polarized colors. 

Jack joined them after a while, leaning against his mother more comfortably than his elder twin. Jack was heavier built than Peter and had taken more after Ava than his father, his eyes a bluer shade of green than his brother. The hour apart had done that, she supposed. He had been the bigger baby by a few pounds, that had been part of what made him so hard to get out.

Ava chuckled at the memory, holding her boys close. Jack looked at her strangely whilst Peter paid her no mind, though she caught his smile.

There were days in her life when Ava Maria Königswald would wish for life to be simpler - days when she wanted to pretend, and could, that she was the simple, average housewife baking pies in her comfortable kitchen, watching her boys go about their day moseying about, and kissing her husband on the cheek at night just before they went to bed. There were days she wished she were queen - when she would fantasize about beheading the men she knew were using their uncle for their own gain or slap Albus Dumbledore on the mouth or shake her old man, the man who raised her, the man she loved, into making sense and listening to his delegates and ambassadors over the borders who were struggling to keep order and peace in their new world. There were days when she wished there was no new world at all - that they had stayed in that house in ‘35 and never left and she hadn’t died and her boys had been two and hers and innocent and hadn’t been wrenched from her life so completely that some days she couldn’t recognize them or them her. There were days when she wished for none of these things - when she was far too busy organizing ops and keeping people alive than to dawdle on meagre things like memories and sentiment and trauma. There was no room for those things on her side of the profession, you moved on and tried your damndest to make sure that what happened to you never happens to anybody else anywhere or ever, as best as you could - and there were some days when she just wanted to die in a ditch somewhere and not think about how her children were growing up and living on without her.

On days like this, with her boys in her arms, basking under the artificial sun of her battered old suitcase-base through the shade of a tree that had been a gift from the one acquaintance their division had made in Japan - on days like this, she wished time would just stop.

Stop, so she could have a little more time to think her plan through, so she could come up with something better than what her uncle did after Zakarin, so she could be a mother and make sense of the world and its beef with her children; her children who deserved nothing but the world, the best she could offer; Jack who would make that spot on the Wampus quidditch team and Peter who would- will, have closure, some way, somehow - and vengeance if she had any say in it. If the Grindelwald House had any say in it, though she wouldn’t be invoking that power anytime soon - or ever really, that _thing_ in the basement would only serve to cause them more harm than good.

But enough of that now. Time stopped for no one and time turners were liable to screw you than to actually help you in the long run. And sometimes, if Dihya’s words were to be taken true- which of course they were, she was _Dihya_ -if you can’t find any more ropes in the box to help you or paths in the forest to take, then the one you already have must be the one meant for you. Or something. She hadn’t seen Dihya in a while and she was pretty sure that proverb was off in some ways, quite possibly more than one. 

“So,” she began, with the inflection of someone very much at the end of their rope and too withered to conjure up any more, into the open air of a field and a room and a lie too good to be true, but hopeful all the same, “how d’you feel about dogs?”

It took a minute but she would have to be calling Hogsworth later, if the look on the twins’ faces were anything to go by.

* * *

The coon pups were a rowdy bunch; a noisy, nosy, rowdy bunch, bunching and baying all over the place in that youthful curiosity Horton would never trade for anything less. That was their nature, for a hound dog that wasn’t howling your ears off was a hound dog with something wrong with him and that was never a good sign of anything. Him and any sane hunter would be mighty concerned if their pups weren’t barking a storm or being all sluggish at a new place, never mind one that had actual evergreen grass and open, clean space, in contrast to New York and the surrounding areas, gloomy next to barren grounds this time of year, too cold for fledgling paws just getting the hang of trotting and prancing. That was the down of fall born litters this side of the country, though they did make the house more lively this relatively quiet season.

Or at least, quiet in the sense of current company; New York never slept, even in winter, which meant crime rates flagged between the same or higher than ever, depending on which governor said what shit or congressman drafted what rule the month before. Though lately, these past four years, things had been slower approaching the Eve, at least for the major mob families and their operations, as if they’d all unanimously decided to hold off until the season was over and done with to continue their plans.

Which, and if his theory were true, considering the circumstances was the wisest move they could have made.

“Lively bunch aren’t they?” 

_Speak of the devil_ , he mused as he turned to meet said devil’s face - and crinkled eyes that were firmly on the horizon; on the gaggle of pups rolling around in the grass being fawned over two young boys who looked like they wanted nowhere else to be. He couldn’t blame them, them pups sure were cute when they wanted to be.

“You taking all of them?” the notion tickled him - the Bloody Mary of Broadway taking a dozen coonhound pups under her wing, letting them loose on whatever poor bastard what pissed off ol’ Missus Phelps that week. To his knowledge, she was still under the capo now turned chief manager- since they didn’t want to scare the senators -’s employ. Unofficially, of course, though you wouldn’t catch Horton telling on them even if it were the other way.

The young lady- always young, these years passed, she never seemed to age -shook her head, obviously as amused as he was. He liked that look on her; at ease, hands in her pockets, shoulders down, chin up. Smiling, proud, a far cry from the woman he’d glimpsed in court on the in-house news reports; all straight backed and tight faced, like she was calculating the outcome of a shoot out or an ambush. Likely things to happen on the field, not so much in an office or a hallway in the middle of the most guarded government stronghold in Europe, rivalling Fort Knox even.

But then again, she’d taken Knox once, if the break room rumors were to be true - which they had to be, because the Goblin and Elvish Welfare & Equal Rights Law wouldn’t have been passed otherwise.

He did not want to know how she knew those documents had existed or where they’d even been buried. Those were not questions you asked unless you were a child or a Secretary.

“How many would I need for a pack?”

Horton considered this for a moment. “Two, at the very least three.” Hounds were company dogs, they did best in groups, as far as he’d seen.

Mary nodded; it was calculated movement. 

“Treeing walkers?” Horton smiled.

“And their momma’s a red tick. Guaranteed best scent hounds this side of the sea board,” he said with pride. And why wouldn’t he be proud? These were his family dogs, his legacy on the side and even his wife was fond of them, had taken to hand rearing and training each litter for the season, even knew their treat preferences and ‘who liked sleeping on the floor instead of the carpet’ sort of things.

“Good,” the grin she wore as she said this flashed teeth, “get me your wicked ones - the brightest, biteyest of the bunch.”

Horton startled a tad, blinking. “Bitey?” and she turned to him-

The look she gave him was intense and both spoke of her seriousness and intent of the matter. No wonder the families respected her.

“Wolfish,” she said and clarified, “not to family, of course, but if they’ll tear a sod to shreds on the streets for looking…”

He caught her drift, somewhat, as she ended it with a terrible, cruel sheen to her eyes, but-

“You can train them to do that,” hounds were smart dogs, you very well could.

“Oh why of course,” she sing-songed, “but you see, even with a trained dog, you can’t beat one that’s already been that - _made_ that way.”

He supposed she had a point. If a dog were already predisposed to a certain degree of aggression or malignant aloofness towards people, they’d fit better as a guard in some spots better than a dog on relative good standing with humanity in the first place.

None of his pups were like that though, their biteyness on a relatively normal scale, mostly friendly and awkward enthusiasm. Moira had raised them firm but gentle, he couldn’t think of his wife ever goading a pup to bite or do something it wasn’t bred to. They were scent dogs, after all; hunting dogs, not those dark faced steel-trap-bite guard dogs all up in Germany. If she’d wanted those, she should have called them.

He said as much- sans the calling Germany part -and Mary seemed to frown.

“Do not mistake my meaning, Hogsworth. I only meant- well I suppose I could have meant that and I do apologize for my wording -but what I meant to say...is that I want a dog for _them_.”

She nodded to her sons, her boys roughhousing in the dirt with his pups. “And _them_ only.” The inflection sunk and implied all he needed to hear from her intent. 

But something still stuck.

“Why mine?” and he explained to her, cautiously, the German thing. She smiled and answered simply:

“They’re New York dogs,” and at his raised brow she added, “they know this city, you raised them here. I know they’re Southern breeds, but their blood is in New York, _here_ -” and she stamped the ground for emphasis, “-their blood is here, on these streets, and there’s no one I’d trust more to raise hounds with New York breeding than you, Director Horton Hogsworth.”

He chuffed. “You’re pulling my leg, Mary.” There had got to be more to it than that. There’d got to. New York breeding his bee-hind; she wanted guard dogs out of hunting hounds, attack dogs out of raccoon chasers. It might have been they’re proximity, him being the closest out of convenience and his previous offer on the matter in the past- that she’d never taken up beforehand -but- and so -why?

Horton didn’t say, but the look her eyes told him she’d read his mind and that, yes, there was something more to it-

But she wouldn't say, for whatever reason. In true Grindelwald fashion, never saying what they truly mean.

Horton sighed - and then looked at the boys.

He had an inkling. There’d been rumors, swirling around, rumors on the darker side of the coffee room, that you’d only hear if one or the other person was drunk or daft enough to release the information. What he heard on that side he would often file away, most of them too dark or demented to discuss in polite conversation. But he knew, he knew somewhat, and maybe that was why he cut her some slack.

Everyone knew about Laurie Mulroney. Everyone, save a few belligerent, albeit lucky bastards who’d either never had a run in with her or just didn’t care enough to remember her name. Which honestly, again, lucky, but rare in the circles he ran in. Everyone under the Order knew of the Mulroneys - a family of rich, high standing half blood wizards with a legacy of being, well, high standing, rich, and half blood wizards, only recently coming through with squib children, the latest being Laurie; the only child of Rigor Mulroney, a squib as well. They stood on fair ground with the Counsel; a congregation of the oldest and most involved of the half-blood families, founders of the Order themselves. Fair ground, good standing, for their financial contributions and charity and what not, but as of late, they were framed for more...nefarious reasons. Reasons regarding money and skimming, something the goblins and the Assistants were investigating at the moment, or so he’d heard. Everyone more or less suspected them, though no one would say anything in fear of retribution - or the Mulroneys running and taking their stolen bills with them, which meant more work for the Book-Keepers Office. An office, of which, the Mulroneys had been trying to infiltrate for years and not in the most honorable sense.

Everyone knew that goblins never hired anyone they thought didn’t have hearts in the work. That was just principal; why work if you weren’t going to work well or hated your job? Their Assistants, likewise, were very hard working men and women, they had their hearts and whole lives in the job, and were just pleasant and diligent enough company that these former Gringotts or what have you bank tellers and bookkeepers tolerated them. Their department was what made the Order go ‘round, so to speak, and thus everyone took their job very seriously and without even a smidge of slack to cut for themselves. The Assistants worked as both proof readers for journals- since some Keepers were on the older side or were frailer due to preexisting and prolonged conditions -and enforcers, on the rare occasion someone forgot to pay a bill or check in with finances or, say, didn’t donate as much money or more than what was written down on purpose. One of these was one Benjamin William Barker, or Bill, for short; nephew to one Obediah Pint, former minor crime boss and owner of several now formalized bars; formerly adopted charge of the Phelps', stepbrother to Annabeth Phelps, Chief Manager of Manhattan and Broadway - and man the Mulroneys had been gunning for since their daughter had come of age. 

Horton wasn’t privy the the details- he’d only gotten Bill’s credentials through some very deep digging and Mary’s own service file -but from what he’d heard, the man had been the office’s golden boy, a favorite for his silent nature up until the moment he had you for skimming and sunk his boot down on your neck, and that, among other things, had been the reason the Mulroney’s went after him; an orphan with that much power, a bachelor with an aversion to fooling around and a confidant to a capo. A key to power, not only in the social strength, but the financial too. Horton could only imagine what they could have done had Barker folded to them, what schemes they could have come away with, and how the Order might be today with the Mulroneys secretly pulling strings in the bank, or robbing the bank altogether.

He could also imagine their outrage when, fourteen years ago, a pretty little Brit girl waltzed into their city and not only gained the favor and respect of most of the major families, but also managed to snag the golden boy from right under their noses. They’d all heard the story - midnight on Broadway, an old chapel burning down, a shootout car chase lasting the whole night long, and a girl in a lily white dress outgunning five cars packed to the brim with snipers and gunmen from all the Order’s former adversaries, about seven families worth, and _winning_. It had made the news, though MACUSA hadn’t dared gone after them with Graves gone - it was even said that Graves had even been the one in the car with her, holding her up as she stood on the side landing with a tommy on her hip, blasting away with her newlywed husband at the wheel. 

The same husband who, as Horton would assume, was currently entertaining those same Mulroneys at Central Park or whatnot whilst his sons were with their estranged, military indentured mother, who had probably heard the same rumors he had, which was most probably why they were here.

Everyone knew Laurie Mulroney and anyone who was unfortunate enough to witness her actions first hand and were in her present company knew she was still gunning for Barker, in spite of his wife- entirely in _spite_ of -in spite of the multiple warnings from multiple people not to, in spite of Barker’s own efforts to get her off as subtly as he could without jeopardizing his op - only this time, she was also going after his sons. _Their_ sons, because Horton could only see such vindictiveness in Laurie Mulroney to go after the sons of the woman who had swiped her gold ticked right from under her fingers; sons who bore more resemblance to their father than the woman who birthed them. Word had been that she’d pretended to _be_ Mary for a time, slotting herself next to Barker’s side whilst the poor gal had been away - until she came back, of course, and Mulroney had to switch tactics. She would get at the boys whenever Mary was on duty and spread gossip about her all the while, pretending for all the world to be the jilted lover when, allegedly, Barker had never even looked her way. The most harrowing thing though was that she’d succeeded, gotten a pound of flesh off of one of boys - just not the one everyone had thought she would.

Horton eyed Peter Barker now, the poor boy; the boy who never spoke, who would come to the office with his brother in the summer, their father in tow, asking for when their mother would be back. He could only imagine that boy, at the sweet age of ten, being eyed like that by a woman thrice his age and then some. Horton had never gone to Mary about it, thinking it hadn’t been his place - though now he wished he would have.

Grindelwalds, he’d found, had it in their nature to be unseemly violent when it came to protecting their own or their families. He had seen it with the lord himself, glimpses from when Mary had been young and the man would growl whenever some fiendish soul would prowl near his girl, and then again later, in this very city, when the auror base in Harlem had been charred open a year before the grand duel. The fire was said to have only razed down a single building, completely demolishing it down to its bones. It was said that survivors had been left as a warning and that the hallows symbol had been left seared into the ground where the building once stood. All covered up of course, in later years, to a frightening degree, the whole story spun on its head to point fingers at MACUSA instead of the then dark lord and now king. Which made some sense; it had been their fault, they’d gone after his family, not only his girl but also his presumed lover. He would never forget the look on Graves’ face when the news got to them and then his face when Grindelwald told him they’d be jumping continents. Horton had stayed to cover up tracks, but the domino effect that whole chain of events had made would haunt him and the underground for the rest of their days. 

There must be something similar in the works for Mulroney. Something subtler, obviously, since they couldn’t exactly prove their theories without going through Peter’s head and, as a father himself, he couldn't imagine doing that with his girl, much less someone else’s kid. Mary, he, and Graves and Pint and Grindelwald and the lot were of an old way; a none too legal way of doing things that could land them in prison and had repercussions beyond just their beings if they were to act on them now. She would need to be exceedingly careful, make sure this never got back to her or her old man, and time it with the Order’s investigation just right. Who knew, maybe she was thinking of raising the dogs as sniffers for later; maybe they were for Jack and his budding quidditch habit, for Peter and his aloofness, both boys could use companions outside of their parents and school, someone who could keep them company in the city and make sure no one would touch them ever again.

 _Or some-pup_. He was getting to her thinking now. He had a couple of candidates going into this, mind, her statement on bites and intent had thrown him off was all. He could understand, now, the notion of a family dog that doubled as a keep-off guard, dogs with the drive to chase quidditch brooms all day and then lounge in the sun after a good book and a meal. Maybe they were too high energy, maybe that was just the distraction her boys needed to get and keep their minds off of other things. Better than your average lapdog, at least these ones could keep conversation.

“I’ll give you six pups,” he said finally, “Three for Peter, three for Jack, just so they’re even.”

He then turned to Mary whose lips were already curving up on her evergreen face, “Think your boys could handle it?”

The smile she gave him was kind, genuine, and frightening in its assurity. 

“Oh, most definitely. You need not worry Horton,” she said, thin as glass, like he lips, “my boys will do just fine.”

Yeah, best not to think of Laurie Mulroney - or whatever fate laid in store for her at the hands of this cruel and terrible family. He just hoped the pups wouldn't fall short, though he had very little doubt that they would.

Grindelwalds, themselves, were dogs after all.

* * *

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**Author's Note:**

> Check out my Tumblr @evening-rose-309 for more stuff like this, or Grindelnewt if you'd prefer!


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